


Heroes and Thieves

by everyperfectsummer



Series: Coldflash week [2]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Suicidal Ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-06
Updated: 2016-12-06
Packaged: 2018-09-06 22:17:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8771542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everyperfectsummer/pseuds/everyperfectsummer
Summary: Sometimes, saving someone just means being there while they save themselves.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Heavy warnings for suicidal thinking. Please, please be kind to yourselves and do not read if this triggers you.  
> Rated M for suicidal thinking, not sex, so if that's what you were looking for I'm sorry.

He’s not sure what’s special about the day, what triggers him exactly, but after one bad day in a series of bad days in a bad life, Len decides to kill himself. He’s  _ tired, _ tired of sticking around day after day. The thrill of a good theft doesn’t reach him anymore, and switching to heroing hasn’t helped. He feels like he’s encased in foam, in some sort of bubble that cuts him off from the world around him. He’s just so tired, all the time, of a world that always takes more than it gives, and never gets better and never will.

 

There’s not much keeping him here, anyway. Lisa and Mick will be sad, but even then, they’ve both learned to live without him before. It’s not like he’s  _ needed _ .

 

So how to go about it? Walking in front of a car or jumping off a building runs the risk of not killing him, his odds of surviving are even higher with an overdose, and drinking bleach just sounds painful. He could always hang or electrocute himself, he supposes. It’d be easy, for him. Like Palmer’d said, he could’ve been an engineer. He wonders if there’s some world in which he was one, wonders if he would’ve been happy there - or if being Leonard Snart, in any life, sentenced you to misery.

 

He rests a hand on his cold gun, in a familiar gesture that’s come to be comforting, and realizes that he’s been an idiot. The cold gun would kill him quickly, easily, and about as painlessly as he can ask for. Oh, it’ll hurt, he knows that, but not for long. Besides. Doesn’t he deserve the end he gave to so many others?

 

Which just leaves the question of  _ where _ to die. He doesn’t want to do it in a safe house, anywhere that Mick or Lisa will be the one to find him. It needs to be somewhere public enough that someone will find him soon, be able to identify him for Mick and Lisa’s sake, but not somewhere public enough the people will have to watch him die. And whoever finds him should be someone used enough to death that it won’t psychologically scar them for life.

 

He runs through a mental list of people in Central trained to deal with death, and the first category that comes to mind is the perfect one - the police. He can sneak into the police station, find an empty room, and kill himself there. Even if the room’s not empty, it’s not like anyone on the police force is going to shed a tear if they see him die, and they’ll have to announce his death, so Lisa and Mick will find out sooner rather than later. It’s the perfect solution.

 

He’s not far away, having been headed to the Motorcar in the first place. Fifteen minutes of brisk walking, and he’s behind the station, in an alleyway. He starts climbing the fire escape, looking next to him for empty rooms. If needs be, he can always kill himself on the roof. People must go up there, right? He’s on the second floor when he spots a room that’s full of chemicals, and, despite the two desks in the room, completely devoid of people. Perfect. He swings himself of the fire escape and through the window - which takes more exertion than it did before his time with the Legends, he really isn’t getting any younger - and enters the room.

 

Just as he lands, the door opens, and Barry Allen walks through the door, juggling several sandwiches. He’s in the middle of eating one, and Len watches in horrified fascination as the sandwich vanishes in less than a second. Then Barry looks up, realizes that Len’s there, and beams.

 

“Len!”

 

“Allen.” He  _ knew _ the damn Flash worked in the precinct. How did it not occur to him that he might run into Barry there? Had he really not been thinking at all?

 

“Why’re you here, do you need something?” Suddenly, the kid is standing right in front of him, sandwiches lying forgotten on the messier-looking desk. “Because I can totally help with whatever you need! Unless it’s criminal or something, in which case probably not unless lives are literally at stake, but -”

 

“I don’t need help. I just... came by to see you,” Len says, inwardly berating himself at not coming up with a better lie.

 

At this, Barry’s smile, already impossibly wide, grows wider. “That’s great!” Then he wilts slightly. “But we’re in the police station, and they still think you’re a criminal, you’re going to get caught. And I’m really not supposed to have guests in the lab, Julian’s already gotten me in trouble for it, but I do have my lunch break right now - do you want to go grab something to eat? I know you like the Motorcar.”

 

Len’s fingers twitch around the coldgun. He doesn’t want to go to lunch, he wants to  _ die. _ But he knows the kid in front of him watched his mom and his dad and who knows how many others get murdered in front of him, and he’s not going to add one more to the tally. He can wait, sneak out, find another empty room or another person to die in front of.

 

“I think I’ll pass, kid.”

 

“You sure?” Barry says. “I’d love to have lunch with you! I want to know literally  _ everything _ about your adventures with the Legends.” A little ruefully, he adds, “It’s nice that there’s some form of time travel that doesn’t automatically end in fuck ups.”

 

Len laughs. “Trust me, we fucked up more than we didn’t.”

 

“So tell me about that, then!” Barry says, before glancing at the clock and saying, “but we really need to get out of here before Julian gets back.” With that, Len feels himself lifted up, and the world whirls around him, until it solidifies into the alley behind the station. “Let’s head to the Motorcar then?”

 

Len looks at the station, and looks at Barry, and makes a decision. “Sure kid. Let’s go have lunch. And Barry?”

 

Barry looks at him quizzically. “What?”

 

“Thanks for being a hero.”

 

Killing himself can wait. There’s always tomorrow.

 

Sometimes, not killing yourself until tomorrow is the only way to stay alive.

**Author's Note:**

> Not pictured: Barry giving Len a very strange look at his out of the blue comment.
> 
> As orphan annie says, tomorrow is always a day away - if you put killing yourself off until tomorrow, you can tomorrow then put it off until the next day, and go years at a time just putting it off until tomorrow. It’s not a therapist certified coping technique, but it’s what’s kept me alive a lot, so if it’s helpful to you, try it out. *jazz hands*  
> If reading this triggered you in some way, try going to [iamalive](https://www.imalive.org/) or [crisischat](http://www.crisischat.org/), both suicide texting hotlines.  
> I’m on [tumblr](http://farflungstars.tumblr.com), if you want to talk about suicide, coldflash, or anything else.


End file.
